1000 paper cranes
by gibergabber
Summary: Why do you visit the hospital everyday? Asks an old woman Tenten befriended. They exchange the stories. Mable's tragic past, and Tenten explains how Neji is barley alive, and how she thinks that a certain legend involving 1000 paper cranes might help.
1. Why do you visit the hospital every day?

**Hey there! So, this is my first time every writing a two shot, or a drama… or maybe it's a tragedy… anyways, this came to me while I was making paper kunai. I was thinking about how I was making so many, then for some reason, I was thinking about the 1000 paper cranes wish thing, then before I knew it, this thing was writing itself! I swear, I get ideas from the strangest places! Hope that you enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the affiliated charactors. I do however own Mable and her story. I also own the plot. Any semblance to real persons or events is strictly a coincidence, and is not meant to be taken to heart**

**^ I sound like a bloody tape recording there, eh?**

"Hello Miss. Tenten, It's nice to see you!" said a delicate looking woman in a wheel chair. Tenten looked up from the bundle she was holding, and a smile broke out across her face. she reached into the package, and pulled out a lovely bluebell.

"It's nice to see you too, Mable! I brought your favourite again!" replied Tenten, a smile on her face, handing the old woman the beautiful flower. The old woman took it gladly, and put it in the vase beside her bed, a vase that held many more of the same.

"I suppose that you are going to see Master Neji again, correct," Asked the woman. Tenten nodded in agreement, her happy expression turning serious for a minute before becoming playful again. Tenten remembered the first time she had met the old lady. She had been looking for Neji after the… accident, when she stumbled on this kind, lonely old lady.

They had started talking, and Tenten offered the lady a flower in thanks, and it had become a tradition. Every day, Tenten would stop at the hospital to visit Neji, and she would stop by Mable's room on the way for a chat. Mable never asked what happened to Neji, and Tenten never asked what was wrong with Mable.

For the past few weeks, Tenten noticed that Mable had been looking worse and worse. She decided that today they would ask each other the one question they never had; their reason for being here.

"I am indeed. Mable, can I ask you a question?" Tenten bit her lip as Mable nodded, her smile never leaving her face. "Mable, why are you here in the hospital?"

"ah, that is a good question. One that I will only answer if you tell me the story of Master Neji, and why you visit him every day if you are not his lover." Mable had a stern look on her face, one that left no room for deliberation, so Tenten agreed.

The old lady motioned for Tenten to sit down, which Tenten did. It did not escape the older woman's sight that as she sat, Tenten's hand went unconsciously to her chest and she winced in pain.

"many years ago, when I was a young girl, I used to love horses. I would ride my horse, bluebell, every day for hours on end until my mother called me in for dinner. He was my best and only friend. He went everywhere that I went. I thought that we would be together forever… that is, until that fateful day." Mable took a long, deep breath before continuing.

"A missing nin crept into our stables that night, supposedly to seek shelter from the rain. My father, he heard the horses acting up so he went to check it out… and the ninja, he killed him. A single kunai to the jugular. I too heard the horses and decided to check on them before they could wake up my parents. When I got to the stables what I saw will haunt me to this day. What is saw was-" Mable had to stop for a minute, the tears were welling up in her eyes. she took another, long, deep breath. Tenten told her that she didn't have to finish if she didn't want to, but Mable told her it was good to get it off her chest.

"I saw that man, bending over my dead father, a look of pure hatred on his face. I was going to run away when he saw me. He knew that I had seen what he did, and that I had seen his headband with the crossed out village symbol. He-he raised his arm, a kunai in hand, and prepared to throw it at me. Knowing that I couldn't run, or stand a chance against an S-ranked criminal, I closed my eyes and prepared to die." Mable's eyes were haunted, almost as though she were watching a movie of what was happening.

"Instead of feeling all-consuming darkness, I felt a lot of pain in my right shoulder, then on my entire left side, finally, a great weight landed on me. Looking to see what was pinning me, I saw my horse, bluebell, the knife sticking out of his flank. He had pushed me out of the way, saving my life. Unfortunately, he had knocked down the candle that my father had brought with him, and it caught fire to the dry hay. Everything started burning, and me, pinned under a 2000 pound dead horse, could not move." As though to prove her point, Mable lifted up a hand to show Tenten how the flesh had melted there. She was missing several fingers, and there was no skin in places.

"I was forced to watch as my entire stable, then house burned down, the only thing saving me was the fire retardant blanket that my horse had on him. Not only had he sacrificed himself for me, he also left me a final gift. As I was watching my house burn, I heard a horrible scream, the scream of my mother, trapped in the house, unable to get down the stairs. I later learned that she never came out at all. My mother screaming was the last thing I remember from that night." Mable winced as she told Tenten the painful memories. She took another deep breath and continued.

"I woke up in the hospital, a homeless orphan, who was severely burnt, had smoke damaged lungs, and a broken hip. When I asked how I got there, the doctors told me that firefighters had found me under a dead horse, covered in a flame retardant blanket, and saved my life. I didn't have to worry about being adopted though. I didn't even have to worry about an orphanage. The damage that I had suffered was so severe that I could not leave the hospital. That is the story of why I am here. Now the doctors tell me that the fire damage to my lungs is still so severe that I could keel over any minute. On top of that I have somehow contracted pneumonia, and therefore won't live long at all."

Tenten stood up to give the crying old lady a hug. Wincing when she felt the pressure on her chest, but otherwise showing no other reaction than empathy, she tried to calm down the her friend. When the lady was sufficiently calm, she smiled at Tenten and said,

"well, now I've been explained, its your turn." She gave Tenten an encouraging smile, while the other woman took a deep breath.

"3 months ago, my team and I, team Gai, were given a mission to take out an S-ranked missing Nin. We spent about 2 weeks tracking him, then we made a plan to ambush him. Tsunade told us that we had to bring him back alive, so the plan was that I would attract his attention with weapons, then Neji would gentle fist him, and Lee and Gai would carry him home from Rice Country. It was a good plan, in fact it was perfect. I suppose that that's why it all went wrong." Tenten took a deep breath and winced. She stared down at the basket she had brought with her, her mind filled with memories, and tears threatening to overtake her eyes again.

"the Nin, he had joined a group of other renegade ninja, only they were about 3 times as large as the Akatsuki. We were no match for them. It turned out that the ninja had been observing us tracking him the whole time, and had listened in on our plan. Instead of us ambushing him, he ambushed us with 30 of his closest S-ranked friends." Tenten laughed bitterly, no humour in her eyes. she started coughing, bringing her hanker chief to her mouth to smother it. She put it into her pocket without looking at it.

"I was knocked backwards when some guy used his Kekki Genkai on me, and was left in a semi-conscious state. I could watch, but not move. I watched as Gai and Lee each took out about 10 guys, before getting knocked out themselves, then I watched as Neji took out the rest using his rotation technique. He was worn out from using all his chakra, and unfortunately, the guy we had been tracking evaded the original attack." Tenten took a deep breath, blinking away the tears that were threatening to spill over.

"The guy, he used some weird jutsu on Neji that caused him to go into a coma. I-I used everything that I could, and I threw a kunai at the guy and I killed him! Lee and Gai carried us all back to Konoha when they woke up, and they put us into the hospital, but-but-but Neji never woke up!" at this, Tenten burst into tears, sobs wracking her frame. The old woman looked at her with knowing eyes.

"I read somewhere that if you make 1000 paper cranes, then you get to make a wish. I've been making paper cranes everyday in Neji's room for the past 3 months, ever since we got back. The doctors tell me that there's a strong chance that he will never wake up but… but if I can finish all the cranes in time, maybe he will. That's why I'm here. I've already made 997, and I just have 3 more to make." The old lady smiled at Tenten and told her to go. Tenten smiled at the lady and said goodbye, promising to come back the next day.

When she was out of the room, Tenten took out the hanker-chief from earlier and looked at it. She smiled a bitter smile; on the hanker-chief were little droplets of red blood.


	2. Am I alive?

"Neji, I'm here" Tenten said, her usual bright and cheery smile back on her face the moment she entered the room. She wasn't expecting a reply; she'd already given up hope of that.

"Look at the fresh flowers I brought you! These outta cheer up this dreary room!" she said, placing said flowers in the vase by his bed, taking out the old ones. She looked down at her partner's face and frowned. Even in the healing coma, he still looked like he was in pain. She knelt down and brushed some hair of his face.

"Let's get down to business, shall we? These cranes aren't going to make themselves you know!" Gritting her teeth at the pain, she sunk down onto the floor by her discarded basket, and pulled out the paper she had brought with her.

Each fold she made, she made clear, and pressed hard, and she thought about her wish. She knew that you had to wish when all the cranes were finished, but since hers was so big, she didn't want to take any chances with it working or not. She spent about an hour on each crane, taking her time to make sure that each one came out perfectly. Every chance she got, she would look up at her teammate's pained face; it gave her motivation to keep going.

About halfway through the making of the final crane, Tenten started coughing again. She took out her hanker chief to muffle it, and when she was finally done, she put it back in her pocket. She picked up the half-finished bird, and noticed that some of her blood had gotten onto it, leaving little dots of blood all over. Tenten didn't really have the energy to start over, so instead she finished the bloodstained bird.

When it was finally done, she placed it on the bed right beside Neji's head. She started coughing again, and this time when she placed the hanker chief to her mouth, there was so much blood that it started to seep through and stain her fingers. Tired from the exertion of coughing, she rested her head on the bed beside Neji, and closer her eyes. She took his pale hand into her calloused tanned one, and started to lose consciousness. Just before she did, she made her wish.

Neji opened his eyes. The first thing that he noticed that he was in the hospital; the perfect whiteness of the place was unmistakeable. The second thing he noticed was that all around his room were hundreds of perfect white cranes, maybe even a thousand. He remembered the old legend 'if you make 1000 paper cranes, you get to make one wish'.

"Who would make 1000 paper cranes for me? And what was their wish?" After saying that, he noticed the third thing; Tenten was holding his hand, her head resting right beside his, and her fingers were covered in paper.

'Oh' he thought. 'Tenten must have made these for me! But wh-' that's when it all flooded back to him, the botched mission, the ambush, almost getting killed, and it also explained why he had seen his father. He had been in a coma. 'Her wish must have been for me to wake up'. He stroked her hair from her face, taking note that her skin was extremely cold.

That's when he noticed the final thing; there was blood on the crane beside his head, blood on Tenten's hand, blood on her hanker chief, and blood around her mouth. _Tenten's _blood.

"Miss Tenten! I was sent here to inform you that your friend, Mable, passed only moments ago and… oh! Master Neji! You're awake! Allow me to call the doctor-"the young nurse blushed when Neji cut her off.

"Call the doctor, but not for me, for Tenten. There is blood everywhere, and she is extremely cold. I'm fine." Thanks to Tenten, he added as an afterthought. The nurse nodded her head, and left the room, coming back minutes later with Sakura. The pink-haired girl had a grave look on her face as she went over to Tenten.

"She still has a heartbeat, which is good, but she isn't breathing. The blood suggests a collapsed lung. We're going to have to open her chest up if we want to save her, but there's a 50/50 chance that she'll die if she's already collapsed." Saukra said as more nurses and doctors came into the room and took Tenten away to surgery.

"Why does she have a collapsed lung?" Neji asked her, concern evident in his voice.

"Do you remember your mission, 3 months ago?" Neji nodded his head yes, surprised at how long he had been in a coma. "Well you and Tenten were carried in together by Gai and Lee. She was still conscious, and refused medical attention, asking only to see you. We thought that it was a bad idea at the time, but since she looked fine, all the preliminaries checked out, Gai and Lee assured us that nothing terrible had happened, and we were understaffed with too many patients, we let her go." Saukra's eyes filled with tears.

"She came in everyday, to visit with you. The first day, she got lost, and went to a lonely old lady named Mable's room. They ended up being good friends, but unfortunately, Mable passed on only moments ago. Anyways, Tenten came in everyday to visit you. After about 3 weeks, she brought some origami paper in and told us that she was going to make 1000 paper cranes so that you would get better." Saukra looked at him with tense eyes before continuing, as though checking to see if he was ready for the next part.

"That's about when we noticed that her eyes were filled with pain. She tried not to show it, but it was there. We all thought that it was pain from your coma at first so we thought nothing of it, but then a week later, she started coughing. Again, we thought that maybe she had just contracted a cold, and thought nothing of it. Normally she would have been barred from the hospital, but no one had the heart, she looked so sad. The coughing and the pain continued, and maybe 2 weeks ago, she started wincing whenever she had to move her chest, or something touched it. When we mentioned it, she told us it was nothing, and asked how you were."

Neji felt tears well up in his eyes when he realized what Saukra was saying; Tenten knew that she was sick and should have been at home resting, but instead she came to him every day to make the cranes so that he could be better. He felt his heart break in two when he realized that he might never see her again. He picked up the crane that was soaked with her blood and asked saukra another thing that had been bothering him.

"When did she start coughing blood?"

"We think that it started about a month ago, maybe less"

"Hn. When will she get out of surgery?"

"It depends on how bad the damage is. It could be anywhere from 7-20 hours, if it really is a collapsed lung. If there is anything else, it could be longer."

"Hn." Neji said again, the calm demeanour staying intact, at least while saukra was still in the room.

"look, Neji, I'm going to put you out again, because you have strained yourself too much, and we don't want you back in another coma," they both mentally added 'because Tenten might not be able to save you again.' Neji nodded his head in consent, so saukra took his I.V and injected something into it. The last thing he remembered was the pink haired girl saying 'you might be up again in time for Tenten to come out of surgery'.

14 hours later, Neji opened his eyes, momentarily confused before the memories came flooding back; Tenten was possibly dead, and it was his entire fault. He called a doctor to his room, and seconds later in walked Tsunade herself.

"Ah, Neji-kun! You're up! Good, good now, I have a few tests for you to make sure that you're all well-"Neji interrupted her before. He knew for a fact that if the Hokage herself was there, then there was bound to be bad news.

"How is Tenten?"

He didn't get a reply, so he tried again.

"How is she?"

Once again, no response.

"Lady fifth, please tells me!"

"Neji, there's some bad news. Her lungs weren't collapsed at all. Several of her ribs were cracked by whatever that Nin did to her, and over the past few weeks, they cracked right off and some of the splinters pierced her lungs. At least one or two, maybe more, pierced her heart. She's still in surgery, though we don't know if she's going to make it out. No one thinks that she will; the damage is too severe. Now, I'm going to put you out again, so that you don't end up in another coma, because that would be bad." And with that, Tsunade did the same thing as saukra.

20 hours after that, Neji woke up again, this time to find that he wasn't alone in the room. Besides the 1000 paper cranes, there were countless get well soon cards and teddy bears, but those weren't the best part; the best part was that on a bed right beside his, was a very familiar set of brown eyes staring at him.

"You don't know how long I've waited to see those eyes open up again." The owner of the brown eyes smiled at him.

"Tenten" Neji breathed out.

"Yes Neji?"

"Why would you waste your wish on me? You were worse off than me! You just spent 34 hours in surgery!"

"What do you mean wasted it on you? I used it on us!"

"No, you wasted it on getting me better, instead of yourself! I may have woken up, but there was less of a chance that you would survive the surgery!"

"I tell you, I didn't waste it on you. I used it on us"

"How is it us, if you wish for me to wake up?"

"My wish was never that you would wake up, never ever. Not even when I made the first crane."

"It... wasn't? Then what was your wish, Tenten? Has it come true for you?"

"That depends; do you love me, as I love you?"

"Yes, very much so."

"Then it came true. It doesn't matter what it was, does it?"

"Please Tennie, it matters to me. What was your wish?"

"A happy ending."

**So, this is my version of a happy ending. This goes out to all of you lovely people who reviewed asking for a happy ending. I was all set and ready to make it sad where they all died, and it was about their memories, but you guys motivated me not to. I'm kind of sad that Mable passed on, because to be honest she was my favourite character out of this entire thing, but if you think about it, it was for the better. She was an old woman, forced to spend her entire life in the hospital. She was lonely and sick. I was just glad that Tenten was able to provide for her in the end. I'm going to write an epilogue to this explain what happened to the 1000 paper cranes.**


	3. Do you believe?

"This is what she would have wanted. Though I didn't know her that well, Mable and I shared something special, we both had traumatic accidents, and unfortunately, she didn't make it over hers. In the brief time that I knew her, we became best friends, and could tell each other anything. She was the first person I told the entire story of why I visited the hospital every day, and she in turn told me her heart breaking tale. In her memory, I'm giving her every single bluebell that I was going to buy her, but never had the chance to, and 999 of the 1000 paper cranes through which we met, in hopes that maybe if she makes the last one, where ever she is, she too will get her one wish. Whether it be to find her family, or anything else her heart desires." Tenten took a deep breath.

She was at Mable's funeral, and since she had been the only one whom Mable had been able to open up to, she was the one asked to speak. The only others who attended were hospital staff members, Naruto as Saukra date, Shikamaru as Ino's date, and Neji as Tenten's.

"I know that of all the thousands of possibilities of her wishes, there are two things that she will never wish for; 1, to be able to forgive the nin who took everything away from her, because she told me that she had already done It, and 2, to be beautiful. She told me that she always found herself ugly, and didn't blame people for staring at her melted face when she went out, until she met me. She told me that I had helped her to see past the ugliness, and see the beauty within. T-t-thank you!" Tenten said, her eyes filling with tears as she ran off the stage.

After the funeral, at the final showing of the body, Tenten when up to Mable, and stroked a strand of hair out of her melted face. She placed within the cold hands a miniature horse statue and a bluebell explaining each one. The horse, to prove that she would always be loyal to her memory, as a horse was, a bluebell, because they were her favourite. She placed a kiss upon Mable's forehead, and the old lady's expression seemed to soften. Then she got into line at the procession.

Neji, Shikamaru, Naruto, and a member of the staff had been asked to be Paul-bearers, so they picked up the coffin, and placed it on their shoulders, starting the short walk from the civilian church to the graveyard. When they got there, and everything was all set for Mable to be buried, Tenten made the sign of the tiger. Out stepped Ino, Saukra, and Tenten herself, each with a small basket. They dumped the baskets full of cranes over the casket, offering up a quick prayer for her.

5 months later, Neji and Tenten are both downed by battle. News of their legendary love story had traveled around the ninja world, how Tenten had spent hours a day making paper cranes for Neji, when she was almost worse off them him, then, when her true condition was discovered, and she was whisked into surgery, the tables were turned for a few hours.

It also traveled around that after Tenten's emergency surgery, she was unable to be a ninja, but with Neji's help, she had blossomed into and even better one than she had been before.

They were buried in one casket, upon it were engraved 999 paper cranes, the symbol for their love. The 1000th paper crane was held in their hands, which had been clasped at the very end. It was the blood soaked crane, which many believed to be the most powerful of all of the others; the couple seemed to agree, it was the only one they had kept. Buried along with the couple was a horse statue, to signify their loyalty to each other.

Ninja and civilian from all over came to the lover's funeral. When it came time to bury the casket, hundreds and hundreds of people threw thousands and thousands of cranes on top of their casket. It seemed as though at least every household in Konoha had made 1000 paper cranes. Gai made a glass like barrier over the top so that the cranes wouldn't be crushed by the dirt, and you could still see all of them. Even the head stone was shaped somewhat like a paper crane.

Years later, if someone wanted a wish to come true, they would go to the grave of Neji and Tenten Hyuuga, and make a paper crane upon the plot. From way up in the position in the sky, it is said that they look down upon the people, and those that they smile at, their wishes come true. Now, don't tell anyone I told you this, but that is true. If you make a paper crane on the gravesite of Neji and Tenten Hyuuga, and they smile down at you, it will come true. As long as you are sincere, serious about your wish, and you concentrate upon every fold, thinking about your wish, who's to say that they won't smile at you? you never know unless you try.


End file.
